SAP and Centrica team up to bring efficient energy IoT management

SAP has partnered with energy and services company Centrica to leverage the use of IoT for better energy consumption management.

The partnership will bring together the powers of SAP’s digital innovation system, SAP Leonardo that combines the power of IoT, analytics, big data, machine learning and blockchain on SAP’s cloud platform using design thinking services and Centrica’s energy insights technology, Panoramic Power.

Centrica and SAP aim to provide new business value to customers by delivering a connected asset experience and digitally transform the energy market. The duo intends to find new avenues for introducing energy IoT solutions for commercial and industrial customers.

They plan to do so by integrating Panoramic Power technology and machine learning algorithms running on SAP Leonardo IoT capabilities with SAP Asset Intelligence Network, a cloud-based asset information repository connecting manufacturers, operators and third-party providers to improve collaboration on industrial machinery, and the SAP Predictive Maintenance and Service solution with IoT energy capabilities and functionality.

Centrica’s relationship with SAP has not always been this smooth. As Computer Weekly reported in March, the energy provider helped move its HR systems to the cloud, through a 13-month project where SAP was replaced by Workday’s cloud HR technology. Centrica made this move on learning that the support cost associated with the platform was more than modern cloud-based alternatives and also because of the difficulty in its usage for the staff. The technology also failed to provide full overview of the global workforce and the ability to gain insights from analysing workforce data.

Elvira Wallis, senior VP for the IoT smart connected business at SAP Labs, writes on the benefits and features of SAP Leonardo IoT Bridge to increase the efficiency in managing supply chains. The solution combines the IoT data with business process data and offers pre-configured work environments for operations professionals designed as per their areas of responsibility, while providing helpful and intelligent business context and real-time visibility across the value chain helping them with decision support in case of uncertainties. Its reach can be extended beyond outbound-logistics by configuring SAP delivered scenarios to specific customer needs.